


Digi Armor Energize

by BandGeek727



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Armor Evolution, Best Friends, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Friendship, Gen, Idek what tags to use, digivolution, will tag characters as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BandGeek727/pseuds/BandGeek727
Summary: The eggs weren’t like the crests; technically, any one of them could’ve used any egg they wanted.





	1. Light up the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a conversation I had with ackbang on tumblr about the Michi e no Armor Shinka CD, which is… Interesting. It has its flaws, but it explores and idea I wish we had seen in the anime; that any one of the kids could have used any one of the digimentals to evolve their partners. To paraphrase JesuOtaku’s retrospective, how cool would it have been to see the kids harness different virtues in different situations? There’d be so much more character development, not to mention awesome monster designs. Of course, digimon is a low budget show, so in terms of armor evolutions each kid only got one or two or, in Ken’s regrettable case, zero. Ackbang said ‘that would make for some really interesting fanfiction’ and well, you just shouldn’t say that kind of stuff to me.

_Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear._ –Meg Cabot

Kari stumbled along the dark hallway of the maze, one hand pressed to the wall so she wouldn’t bump into it. The faint glow of the D-3 was her only light source. She stepped carefully, guided by the soft patter of her partner’s feet on the stone floor ahead. The feline digimon had much keener senses than she did, so Kari had no problem letting Gatomon lead the way.

They came to a fork in the maze. Gatomon perked her ears and sniffed at the air before gesturing to their left. Kari followed, her hand shaking against the rough stone wall. Was it just her imagination, or were these hallways getting narrower?

“So, whose D-terminal did you get?”

With trembling fingers Kari pulled the device out of her pocket. When Minotarumon had attacked they had all scattered, and in the scuffle Kari’s D-terminal had been knocked out of her hands. She’d scooped it up and taken off after her partner only to discover that the device she’d retrieved wasn’t hers. Now she and Gatomon were separated from the others, wandering deeper and deeper into this endless maze, and to top it off Gatomon had no way of digivolving.

Kari fumbled with the D-terminal before she finally managed to get it open. Two eggs filled the screen; one patterned with bright red and orange flames, the other long, thin, and gray.

“I-it’s Davis’,” she said.

Gatomon stopped and turned her piercing blue eyes onto her partner. “Well, what do you think? Should we give it a try?”

Kari’s hands shook as she stared at the screen. No way could she ever activate the egg of courage on her best day, let alone the way she felt right now. But maybe friendship…

Kari closed her eyes and brought the D-terminal close to her chest and thought of her friends. Of Cody, Ken, and Davis, of Yolei, and TK…

A sharp scream echoed through the maze.

Kari’s eyes flew open. “TK!”

Another cry followed his, long and high.

Gatomon’s ears perked. “That’s Yolei!” She cast her partner a desperate look. “Kari!”

Kari stood rooted to the spot, her legs shaking fiercely, torn between screaming and running and doing neither but knowing she had to do something…

And then a bright orange light filled the hallway.

“Gatomon, armor digivolve to… Lynxmon!”

The corridor was suddenly filled with a light so blinding Kari had to shield her eyes. When she was finally able to open them, she saw a giant tiger-like digimon standing before her, its body covered from head to toe in flames.

“L-lynxmon?”

The fiery feline lowered herself onto the floor. “Climb on, Kari!”

Kari hesitated. Wouldn’t the flames burn her? But they were giving light to the darkness, and chasing away her fear… And the creature had her partner’s reassuring voice.

Kari pocketed the D-terminal and climbed onto Lynxmon’s back. The flames licked harmlessly at her skin and clothes, giving off nothing but a pleasant warmth. Kari took a fistful of fire in each hand as her partner leapt forward, bounding through the halls toward their friends.

The screaming was getting louder, but rather than scaring Kari it spurred her on. _Hang on guys, we’re almost there!_

Lynxmon skidded to a halt at a dead end. Kari could hear her friends just beyond the wall, and a low growl that told her Minotarumon had found them.

“Thermal Mane!”

A volley of fireballs exploded from around Lynxmon’s neck and shot at the wall, blasting a hole in the stone. Beyond the debris Kari could see Minotarumon, and just past him Yolei was clinging to an unconscious Hawkmon as TK struggled to get to his feet.

Kari slid from her partner’s back as Lynxmon launched at Minotarumon.

“Wild Nail Claws!”

Minotarumon had barely raised his cannon before Lynxmon slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. The two digimon crashed into the wall and Lynxmon leapt back, circling and readying another attack.

Kari picked her way over the rubble and rushed to her best friend’s side. “Yolei, are you alright?”

“I-I think so,” Yolei said. “But Hawkmon… he tried to protect me, but he couldn’t digivolve!”

Kari took her friend’s shaking hand in her own. “Yolei, he’ll be okay. Don’t worry – we’ll get out of here and everything will be okay!”

Yolei nodded weakly. Kari looked over at her best childhood friend. “TK, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he groaned. Patamon succeeded in pushing him into a sitting position and TK pressed a hand to his head, wincing. He looked up and blinked at the battle raging in front of him. “Is that… Gatomon?”

Kari stared proudly up at her partner. “Yep, only she’s Lynxmon now.”

Yolei was watching the fiery cat with wide eyes. “Wow…” she breathed.

Minotarumon reared back, swinging his cannon arm around. “Bull Fighting Attack!”

Lynxmon dodged the blow and leapt forward, crashing into Minotarumon’s midsection and knocking him into the maze wall.

“Thermal mane!”

Another round of fireballs crashed into Minotarumon in quick succession. The virus digimon slumped to the floor and did not get up again.

Lynxmon straightened and turned to face the children. Her gaze locked with her partner’s and Kari smiled.

They were alright. Everything was going to be okay.


	2. Stop and Think

_Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure._ – J.K. Rowling

“Any sign of them?”

Davis held his D-3 out in front of him, turning it this way and that as he tried to pick up a signal from his friends’ digivices. He let out a frustrated sigh.

“Nothing yet.”

Veemon echoed his partner’s sigh as they kept trudging through the forest. Davis wasn’t sure how long they’d all been separated but he was more than ready to find the others and get the heck out of here. This was supposed to be a fun trip to the Digital World, but something had gone wrong. Something _always_ went wrong. They’d been attacked, then separated, and only then did Davis realize that the D-terminal he’d grabbed on his way out the door wasn’t his.

He reached up absently to adjust his goggles. “You know, this would go a lot faster if we had Raidramon.”

Veemon shot him a glare. “Yeah? And maybe I should ride around on _your_ back for a while, see how you like it!”

Davis waved his free hand. “Hey, take it easy! I was only jo- Hey!”

Davis stopped in his tracks and Veemon followed suit. “What? What is it?”

Red dots had finally shown up in the top right corner of Davis’ D-3. He counted them… It looked like all his friends were there, and even better, they all seemed to be in one place.

“It’s the others!” he said. “Come on, this way!”

Davis took off through the trees. He could hear Veemon shout “Hey, wait for me!” as his partner ran to catch up with him. The signal got stronger with every step he took, but when he came to a clearing Davis saw something that stopped him in his tracks. A large stone structure with a single entryway rose out of the ground in front of him. 

“Whoa, is that a pyramid?”

While Davis stared Veemon broke free of the treeline and dashed ahead of him. He’d almost reached the pyramid’s entrance before he turned back and waved to his partner. “Davis, come on!”

“Huh? Oh, right!” Davis shook off his surprise and followed Veemon into the pyramid. The bright light from outside was swallowed up by the dark stone hallway and as a result Davis didn’t see that his partner had stopped until he crashed into the dragon. Veemon had thrown one arm out, catching Davis across the knees before he could go any farther.

“What’s up?”

“Shh!” Veemon rasied one claw to his lips, then pointed across the room. Davis blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light in the pyramid, and then he could see a digimon at the opposite end of the chamber, pacing back and forth in front of a narrow passageway. It looked like a robotic cat; it had a pronged tail, two golden wings, and eyes that glinted like rubies.

“Who’s that?” Davis asked.

“That’s AncientSphinxmon,” Veemon whispered. “She’s a Mega, and pretty dangerous.”

Davis glanced down at his D-3. According to the signal, the others were just up ahead, just beyond the passage and past AncientSphinxmon.

Throwing caution to the wind, Davis stepped forward and waved. “Hey!”

“Davis! What are you _doing?”_ Veemon hissed, running after his human.

AncientSphinxmon turned towards Davis, though she didn’t stop pacing. “May I help you?” she asked, in a low, smooth voice.

“Um, yeah, I think our friends are in there,” Davis said, pointing down the hallway behind her.

AncientSphinxmon glanced over her shoulder, then back at Davis. Her lips quirked in an odd smile as she kept pacing. “And?”

Davis blinked at her. “Uh… and could you please let us through?” he asked, adopting his most ingratiating grin.

She shook her head. “You must answer a riddle.”

The smile fell from Davis’ face. “A riddle?!”

Riddles weren’t exactly his thing. That was more up Ken or Izzy’s aisle, or Yolei’s or even Cody’s. Davis was good at fighting. And giving rousing speeches to encourage his friends.

“I will give you one chance to answer,” AncientSphinxmon was saying. “If you cannot solve the riddle, remain silent and I shall let you walk away unharmed. Answer wrongly, and I attack.”

Davis’ fists clenched at his sides as he considered this. He would’ve preferred the direct approach, but he couldn’t ask Veemon to take on a Mega alone. And didn’t Matt tell him once that when you had the chance to avoid a fight, you should take it? Yeah, “think outside the box,” that’s what Ken was always saying. If he really couldn’t think of the answer, he and Veemon could walk away and look for another way in.

“Davis…”

Davis blinked and turned to look at his partner. Veemon was staring up at him with a look of pure belief, a belief in _him_ that Davis didn’t think he’d ever get used to.

“Davis, you can do it!”

Davis grinned and nodded. “Right!” He turned to AncientSphinxmon. “Let’s hear it!”

The feline digimon smiled lightly and sat down in the middle of the passageway. Her wings blocked it on either side of her.

“In order to keep me, you must first give me away. What am I?”

Maybe this was a mistake. Davis frowned. How could you keep something by getting rid of it? He brought a hand to his chin as he started to pace, his footfalls echoing around the stone walls. What did he know of that could be kept if you gave it away? He had someone else’s D-terminal at the moment, but that only meant that whoever it belonged to _didn’t_ have it. Last week he let Ken borrow his Lupin III DVD, but he was pretty sure that didn’t count because when Ken gave it back then Ken wouldn’t have it anymore.

As he walked back across the floor he looked up and caught Veemon’s eye. The little dragon was staring at him, his bright red eyes full of confidence and his fists brought up in front of his chest as he grinned up at Davis, as if he was mentally cheering his partner on. Veemon was the best. Davis felt like he’d always been there, even though they hadn’t known each other that long, really. But that’s what friendship was like… You stuck by each other and believed in the other person no matter what, and you’d always be there…

A lightbulb went off in Davis’s brain and he snapped his fingers, turning back to AncientSphinxmon with a triumphant grin. “I got it! It’s a promise, right? You have to give one before you can keep it!”

The Mega digimon dipped her head. “That is correct.”

“Yahoo!” Veemon launched himself at his partner and Davis caught him and swung him around. “I knew you could do it, Davis!”

Davis laughed as the two of them spun in place, but then he noticed that AncientSphixmon hadn’t moved and was still watching them with that same creepy smile.

Davis frowned as he set Veemon back on his feet. “Hey… aren’t you going to let us through?”

“No.”

Davis’ jaw hit the floor. “No? But you said if I solved your stupid riddle you’d let me through!”

AncientSphixmon just smiled at them. Davis had to resist a very strong urge to slap that smirk off her face.

“I said no such thing,” she said. “I said if you stayed silent, I’d let you leave, and if you answered wrongly, I’d attack. I never specified what would happen if you answered correctly.”

“So you were just messin’ with us?!”

The Mega just grinned. “If you were truly smart, you would have secured my word before you agreed to play.”

Davis saw red. He opened his mouth to protest but Veemon beat him to the punch, charging at AncientSphinxmon with a wild yell.

“Veemon!”

“Dark Blast!” AncientSphinxmon opened her mouth and released a beam of dark energy. It hit the Rookie dragon square in the chest and sent him tumbling backwards.

“Veemon, no!” Davis ran forward as AncientSphinxmon crouched down, preparing to strike again.

And then the chamber was suddenly filled with a bright purple light. Davis brought an arm up to shield his eyes.

“Veemon, armor digivolve to… Honeybeemon!”

As the light faded and Davis was able to open his eyes, he looked up to see an insect digimon hovering above where Veemon had been laying just a moment before. It looked like a honeybee, with a blue face and sharp black eyes and shimmering wings. On his visor was the Crest of Knowledge.

AncientSphinxmon recovered quickly and fired another Dark Blast, but Honeybeemon dodged it.

“Sweet Spray!” A fine golden powder emitted from Honeybeemon’s claws and settled over AncientSphinxmon as she leapt at the insect. The Mega digimon collapsed mid-pounce and fell over on her side, snoring lightly.

“Alright!” Davis cheered, fist-pumping for good measure. “You did it, Honeybeemon!”

His partner turned and flashed him a grin. “Come on, let’s go!”

They charged into the passage. At the end of a short hallway the passage turned down to the left and to the right. On the wall ahead was an inscription in a language Davis didn’t recognize.

Honeybeemon studied it for a moment, then took off to the right. “This way! Left is a dead end.”

Davis grinned up at his partner. Veemon was the coolest, no matter what form he took. “You’re awesome, you know that?”

“I know!”

Davis laughed. “Just wait ‘til I tell the others I had to solve a riddle to get to them!” His smile faded. “Although, they probably won’t believe me…”

Honeybeemon glanced over his shoulder, his black eyes glittering as he fixed his partner with a gentle smile. “I believe you, Davis. Always do.”

Davis could only stare at his partner for a moment, and then that easy grin of his was back in place. “Yeah, I know!” Then he added, softly, “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a riddle that Davis would be able to solve, but not one that was so obvious it would seem like AncientSphinxmon was going easy on him. I did a Google search for riddles and picked one that relied on heart as much as logic, because that just fits Davis.
> 
> Also it ties in thematically with what I was planning on having AncientSphinxmon do to them, so... sure, let's say I planned it that way. ^_^

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old fic, but I do have plans to finish it. We'll see how that goes.


End file.
